High School Coach Accused Of Tricking Students Into Taking Their Clothes Off; Students Say He’d Ask Them If They Were ‘Shy Or Not Shy’

A coach in Rhode Island is accused of molesting high school students after allegedly tricking them into taking their clothes off under the impression that he was going to measure their body fat.

Are you “shy or not shy” is what students say 55-year-old Aaron Thomas would ask them before propositioning them to undergo a “fat-testing” program he gave student-athletes. According to PEOPLE, Thomas worked as a teacher and basketball coach at North Kingstown High School in North Kingstown, Rhode Island.

Current and former students claim Thomas would convince students to take their clothes off to their underwear in a closet connected to the boy’s locker room. During the “fat-testing” sessions, he would claim to be measuring their fat, asking them if they were “shy or not shy.”

If they weren’t shy, he told them to take their underwear off and would use a tool to measure the area of their upper thighs, students told WPRI-TV. Students say they were afraid to say they were shy out of fear that they may lose the opportunity to play at the varsity level for the school’s basketball team.

Thomas, who worked at the school for a 30-year tenure, has since been charged with child molestation and sexual assault. PEOPLE reports Thomas “engaged in sexual contact with two victims” between 1990 and 2021, one of whom was under 14 years old.